SD City Staff Auditor Resigns

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published December 22, 2006 at 10:47 AM PST

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

San Diego's long awaited outside audit of its 2003 financial statement is delayed yet again. The city's outside audit company, KPMG, has missed another deadline, pushing back the timetable for the cit

San Diego's long awaited outside audit of its 2003 financial statement is delayed yet again. The city's outside audit company, KPMG, has missed another deadline, pushing back the timetable for the city to get back into the bond market. Meanwhile the city's internal auditor John Torell has resigned. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Torell is resigning less than two years into the job, though he originally said it would take 3 to 5 years to turn his office around. He replaced former auditor, Ed Ryan, who resigned abruptly when the city's pension scandal broke.

Torell says he's not leaving because of San Diego's persistent financial problems, but he is disturbed that under the new strong mayor form of government, the city auditor still doesn't have the independence needed to keep the city honest.

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John Torell: I hold the mayor and his staff in the highest regard but it's taken them a while to accept the value of and the need for an independent auditor in this organization, a truly independent auditor.

Torell adds he doesn't see evidence the culture at city hall is more open than before

Torell: The bottom line: this survey they just completed where they asked people if they felt free to speak up and to be open and all, and the results of that didn't seem to be too good!

Torell returns to his home town of Santa Barbara to a job which doesn't offer any more money. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.